College Education In Crucet's Story "Make Your Home Among Strangers"

Most students coming into college think that it’s their time to be independent, have fun, make new friends, and get a degree. Jennine Capo Crucet acknowledges that college is more than just having fun partying with friends and just getting to that degree you strongly desire so quickly and easily. It’s a place where you make your new home, with new family and be with them until you reach your success. College consists of dedication and ambition. College education opens up new doors for you to reach your success with your hard work and become one of the idols you looked up to since you were a child or the people who just inspired you during your lifetime.

In Crucet’s story, “Make Your Home Among Strangers,” she talks about a girl named Lizet and her experience with coming to college and how it changed her life. The story is told with an opening of the character reflecting on her past life near the polluted environment of Hialeah, Miami. While she’s gasping at her past life she tells us a lot about her personal experiences along with college experiences. The protagonist confesses “I’d testified at my hearing a week earlier: I’d attempted to correctly cite something, but I didn’t even know the extent to which that needed to be done to count as correct”(Crucet Chapter 2).

Basically this shows us that Lizet is new to all this and she is getting penalized for not citing her writing paper. This is just one aspect of what college life could be. Responsibility is major key for college. If Lizet didn’t know she had to cite it she could have went for feedback to her professor. Academic success in college is only achieved when you put in the work for it. The protagonists first year of college experiences are shown clearly and how she’s been distracted but her mother doesn’t know anything about it. Lizet tells us that “I didn’t really know if i should major in biology, but I planned to major in biology anyway because I’d read it was one of the largest, most popular majors at Rawlings, and therefore (I reasoned) couldn’t possibly be that hard”(Crucet end of Chapter 2).

Most students that are first year college students go through this and then end up changing their major to a whole different one, Which can also delay their degree. This is where all the fun can end for some people too because most people want to have a social life, enough sleep and academic success at the same time. There’s very few people that can do it all together, but for most it’s not their cup of tea. Hence, Having a firsthand account of the transition of college has really changed my view on the book.

The experiences of the protagonist are very similar to most college students in their freshman year. Trying to figure out how to be academically successful with other distractions can be very challenging. The book showcases any type of hardships society and school can cause, it teaches us that college has expectations and that we need to place our personal matters aside from our school work. Being emotionally stable can really be an advantage in the first year, because you’re already ahead of what the school thinks of you. Meaning you’re not confused or lost, and that you know what you are in college for.

Works Cited:

1. “Make Your Home Amongst Strangers.” New York : St. Martin's Press, 2015. Crucet Capo Jennine.